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Adebayo Adedeji: Africa’s Foremost Prophet of Regional Integration

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The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy

Part of the book series: Palgrave Handbooks in IPE ((PHIPE))

Abstract

This chapter makes a claim for the importance of individuals in promoting the implementation of economic ideas through institutions. While the focus is on the ideas that were promoted, I argue that the intellect, character, experiences, and personality of individuals often shape institutions, which can consequently be used to disseminate these ideas to the practical realm of policy. I focus on the impact of the ideas of Nigeria’s Adebayo Adedeji on the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) between 1975 and 1991. Adedeji died in Lagos on 25 April 2018, with his funeral in Ijebu-Ode being attended by two former Nigerian heads of state—Generals Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo; the president of Namibia, Hage Geingob; and the former president of Liberia, Amos Sawyer.

We assess the role, vision, and impact of Adebayo Adedeji, who is regarded as the contemporary intellectual father of regional integration in Africa (even if his ideas did not always translate into practice), as well as an important institution-builder. The chapter seeks to place Adedeji in historical context, highlighting the role that individuals with vision and forceful personalities can play in driving institutions to adopt ideas but also demonstrating the institutional, regional, and external constraints on the implementation of these ideas, which rely as well on the decisions and vested interests of powerful national governments and other important actors. The chapter further assesses the personal, intellectual, and professional background and influences that shaped Adedeji into a crusading prophet of regional integration and economic development.

This chapter builds on Adekeye Adebajo, ‘The Pan-African Cassandra: Adebayo Adedeji’, in Adekeye Adebajo, The Eagle and the Springbok: Essays on Nigeria and South Africa (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2017), pp. 191–204.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I have relied on the entertaining biography by Temilolu Sanmi-Ajiki, Adebayo Adedeji: A Rainbow in the Sky of Time (Lagos: Newswatch Books, 2000).

  2. 2.

    The information in the above two paragraphs have been summarised from ‘The Order of the Funeral Service of Professor Adebayo Adedeji’, 6 July 2018, pp. 19–20.

  3. 3.

    Sanmi-Ajiki, Adebayo Adedeji, pp. 110–122.

  4. 4.

    Adebayo Adedeji, ‘Prospects for Regional Economic Cooperation in West Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 8 July 1970, pp. 213–231.

  5. 5.

    See also Adebayo Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS: A Retrospective Journey’, in Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (eds.), West Africa’s Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2004), pp. 21–49.

  6. 6.

    See Adebayo Adedeji (ed.), Africa within the World: Beyond Dispossession and Dependence (London: Zed Books, 1993); S.K.B. Asante, African Development: Adebayo Adedeji’s Alternative Strategies (Ibadan: Spectrum, 1991); Reginald Cline-Cole, ‘Adebayo Adedeji’, in David Simon (ed.), Fifty Key Thinkers on Development (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2006); Bade Onimode and Richard Synge (eds.), Issues in African Development: Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65 (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1995); and Bade Onimode et al., African Development and Governance Strategies in the 21st Century: Looking Back to Move Forward. Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at Seventy (London and New York: Zed Books, 2004).

  7. 7.

    Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS: A Retrospective Journey’, p. 234. See also Adebayo Adedeji, ‘The Economic Commission for Africa’, in Adekeye Adebajo (ed.), From Global Apartheid to Global Village: Africa and the United Nations (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2009), pp. 373–398.

  8. 8.

    Adedeji, ‘The Economic Commission for Africa’, pp. 373–398.

  9. 9.

    See the insightful biography by Edgar J. Dosman, The Life and Times of Raùl Prebisch, 1901–1986 (McGill: Queen’s University Press, 2008).

  10. 10.

    Adebayo Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, in Yves Berthelot (ed.), Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas: Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 253–256.

  11. 11.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 257–258.

  12. 12.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 258–259.

  13. 13.

    The above two paragraphs are summarised from Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 259–262 and p. 269.

  14. 14.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 262–265.

  15. 15.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 276.

  16. 16.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 256–257.

  17. 17.

    Asante, African Development: Adebayo Adedeji’s Alternative Strategies.

  18. 18.

    ‘African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation’, UN General Assembly Resolution 44/49, 17 November 1989.

  19. 19.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 284–285.

  20. 20.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 285.

  21. 21.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’.

  22. 22.

    Adedeji, ‘The Economic Commission for Africa’, pp. 373–398.

  23. 23.

    Asante, African Development: Adebayo Adedeji’s Alternative Strategies.

  24. 24.

    Robert S. Browne and Robert J. Cummings, The Lagos Plan of Action vs. the Berg Report: Contemporary Issues in African Economic Development, Monographs in African Studies (Washington D.C.: Howard University, 1984), p. 23.

  25. 25.

    Browne and Cummings, The Lagos Plan of Action vs. the Berg Report, pp. 213–215.

  26. 26.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 287.

  27. 27.

    Gilbert M. Khadiagala, ‘Two Moments in African Thought: Ideas in Africa’s International Relations’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 17, 3, December 2010, pp. 375–386.

  28. 28.

    Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS’, p 36 and pp. 46–47.

  29. 29.

    Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 252.

  30. 30.

    Audit of the African Union: Towards a People-Centred Political and Socio-economic Integration and Transformation of Africa (Addis Ababa: African Union, 2007).

  31. 31.

    Audit of the African Union.

  32. 32.

    See Adebayo Adedeji, ‘NEPAD’s African Peer Review Mechanism: Progress and Prospects’, in John Akokpari, Angela Ndinga-Muvumba and Tim Murithi (eds.), The African Union and Its Institutions (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2008), pp. 241–269.

  33. 33.

    See African Peer Review Mechanism, ‘Country Review Report: Republic of South Africa’, African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Country Review Report, 2007.

  34. 34.

    Patrick Bond, ‘First Class Failure’, BBC Focus on Africa, 21, 4, October–December 2010, p. 26.

  35. 35.

    Adebayo Adedeji (ed.), South Africa in Africa: Within or Apart? (London: Zed Books, 1996).

  36. 36.

    Adedeji, ‘South Africa and Africa’s Political Economy’, pp. 40–62.

  37. 37.

    Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS’, p. 46.

  38. 38.

    Adebayo Adedeji, ‘Foreword’, in Adekeye Adebajo and Raufu Mustapha (eds.), Gulliver’s Troubles: Nigeria’s Foreign Policy after the Cold War (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008), pp. xvii–xix.

  39. 39.

    Quoted in Sanmi-Ajiki, Adebayo Adedeji, pp. v–vii.

  40. 40.

    See Simon, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Adekeye Adebajo

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  1. Adekeye Adebajo
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Correspondence to Adekeye Adebajo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

    Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba

  2. Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba

  3. Department of History, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Toyin Falola

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Adebajo, A. (2020). Adebayo Adedeji: Africa’s Foremost Prophet of Regional Integration. In: Oloruntoba, S.O., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy. Palgrave Handbooks in IPE. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_14

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